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Some related news.

Background from this journal—

Collegiality, That Hideous Strength , and The Oxford Murders .

See also…

"The heart of the book is the conveying of a meaningful understanding
of where mathematical results originated…."

In memory of "Mr. Piano" Roger Williams, who died today—

Flashback:

Related material— A quote from The Oxford Murders ,
a novel by Guillermo Martinez—

"Anyone can follow the path once it’s been marked out.
But there is of course an earlier moment of illumination,
what you called the knight’s move. Only a few people,
sometimes only one person in many centuries,
manage to see the correct first step in the darkness.”

“A good try,” said Seldom.

Post 2310 in yesterday evening’s Short Story links to two posts
from 2006 inspired by Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy—

The first paragraph of
“Zeta Functions of Groups: The Quest for Order
Versus the Flight from Ennui,” by Marcus du Sautoy,
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford—

“Mathematics is about the search for patterns,
to see order where others see chaos. We are very lucky
to find ourselves studying a subject which is neither so rigid
that the patterns are easy, yet not too complicated
lest our brains fail to master its complexities.
John Cawelti sums up this interplay perfectly in a book*
not about mathematics but about mystery and romance:
‘if we seek order and security, the result is likely to be
boredom and sameness. But rejecting order for the sake
of change and novelty brings danger and uncertainty…
the history of culture can be interpreted as a dynamic
tension between these two basic impulses…
between the quest for order and the flight from ennui.”’

* John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance:
Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture ,
University of Chicago Press, 1976.

[Cawelti cites as his souce on interpreting “the history
of culture” Harry Berger, Jr., “Naive Consciousness and
Culture Change: An Essay in Historical Structuralism,”
Bulletin of the Midwest Modern Language Association ,
Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring 1973): page 35.]

Here du Sautoy paints mathematicians as seekers of order,
apparently not realizing that the author he approvingly quotes
states that seekers of order face the danger of boredom.

Another danger to seekers
of order is, of course, seeing
order where there is none.

“Are you the butterfly?“

"I've got a little story you oughta know…."

For Yom Kippur

1. New York Lottery

2. Image— Almeida and Inscape

3. Against the Day , page 453

4. Image— Argument for the Existence of Rebecca

Some literary and cinematic background—

"Are you the butterfly… ?"